“I was often disappointed,” she said as she showed her creation around her gallery, “that the things I make with such skill cannot admire my handiwork. Now at last I have made something that can look on itself with wonder.” But, she had to admit, she liked it even better when the lover looked upon her with wonder.

Her lover’s skin was glass, her lover’s touch was soft.

The nights were fine since she was skilled enough at glassblowing to give her glass lover skill enough, but soon she began to dread the mornings. More often than not when the sun had risen and they roused from their sleep, her lover would turn to her and say something like, “I dreamed the ocean bore down on me, rubbing and grinding me down until I was nothing but the finest fragments scattered all around the world.”